L’uso delle canzoni in C’è ancora domani di Paola Cortellesi tra commento ironico e rituale violento

Résumé

Paola Cortellesi’s successful 2023 film C’è ancora domani distinguishes itself not only through its black-and-white aesthetic reminiscent of neorealism and echoes of film comedies, but also through its extraordinary use of songs in the film score. All nine songs – six in Italian and three in English – are anachronistic in relation to the film’s setting in 1946, some, such as “B.O.B.” by Outcast (2000) or Daniele Silvestri’s “A bocca chiusa” (2013) even in a striking way. The article examines the semantic and affective function of the songs in the respective film scenes and questions their significance in the cinematic diegesis. The distinctions made in this context also form the basis for the chapter structure, which – after some methodological preliminary remarks – proceeds as follows: extradiegetic comments ‘against the action’, ‘playing the subtext’, and ‘playing the action’, and finally the ‘supradiegetic’ use of songs, similar to those in musicals, which is a particularly distinctive feature of the film.